Spreading Community

Back in the bloggy day, whenever I’d have an especially productive morning, I’d sit at the table with my laptop and breakfast and write about what I’d accomplished while the kids were eating breakfast and watching TV. If you searched my archives, you’d find several posts of me being happy and proud about a well-oiled morning. Today feels like one of those days.

Lydia and Asa have started a new chore system (which I’ll write about in a few weeks if it works out) so they’ve made their beds, read their Bibles, put in a load of clothes, fed the dog and started on the dishes. My only chore was making breakfast and getting them doing their chores, but all in all, at 8:59 today feels like a win.

Normally, I would have taken a pic of my eggs and posted it to Instagram but today I felt like writing about it. (I’m sure you’re thrilled.) It’s funny how blogging has changed. I’ve been able to ride the wave of change–from groups of women talking via their daily web-logs to communities online to ministry blogs to multi-author sites to insta-blogging and more.

I’ve gotten to the point to where I can’t seem to write a pithy, breezy little post about my day anymore. I update those daily funnies on Instagram. I tweet interesting links instead of doing round-up posts. I ask for advice on Facebook.

And my blog?

Where does that leave my blog?

I think I’ve come to the point that my blog is simply the place where I write about big things. Things that take 800 words to tell you instead of 140 characters or one square photo with a filter. These days my blog is about resources I think you need to know, helpful insights from my parenting walk and the fun creative stuff our family might do together. (And apparently, once in a blue moon, a weird bloggy post like this one.)

Which means, I don’t write-WRITE as much. And I wonder about that. In 2010 I wrote 553 blog posts. Last year, I wrote 190. Have I run out of things to say?!

Again, if you’d go through my archives, you’d see this same kind of state-of-the-blog-amanda-gets-introspective-about-how-blogging-has-changed posts. I am intrigued by social media, by its’ ability to reach so many, to do so much with so many intangibles. So, I’m always experimenting, evaluating and feeling out how it all works for me…and for you.

I sometimes wonder if there is a “you” anymore. I just read a post by Jon Acuff about how High School kids don’t read blogs. They all Instagram or tweet or snapchat or tumblr or whatever they all do. But there aren’t hoardes of people following bloggers the way it used to be.

People seem to find blogs via Pinterest or Google or a share from a Facebook friend. They might go back and read them again or bookmark it someway (not with old-school Control-D, I’m sure) but communities on blogs seem to be reserved for The Pioneer Woman or really niche-y bloggers. (Or maybe I’m just telling myself that?)

Community seems to have spread. Small Instagram communities, little Facebook groups and Twitter lists. The bloggers I used to follow have now become friends on Instagram and Facebook–they aren’t daily reads like they used to be. Not because I don’t like to read them but because I have more communities to reach into–and more places to connect with them personally. Which I love!

What do you think? Is your online community (as a blogger or a reader) different from when you first discovered the friends in your computer?

Where do you hang out online most?

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Comments

Well i can’t speak for most of the population as we live in a little whole in the ground and it seems we are still so stuck in the past so really blogging is a new thing for us (I know where sooo behind the times) So i personally love going back in your posts and reading, I love using your resources for kids, we just finished your fruits of the spirit lessons and all our sunday school teachers loved it! I also love getting an email letting me know that you have posted again! So maybe where you live things are changing and ppl are into new and different things but out here in small little Saskatchewan we love you and all your thoughts and words and lessons and advice and I personally would be fine if you went back to writing 590 (?) posts a year as opposed to only 190 (?) The more OhAmanda the better!!!

I guess it’s true—it just depends when you discovered the online world, right? I’ve been blogging since 2007 and SO much has changed–as a blogger and a reader. Anyway, thanks for your SWEET SWEET words!

Yes, things change so rapidly… I have so much I want to write about and just simply don’t have the time to write. I do miss the days when a post could be a picture and a few words. Maybe I should just go back to that… I think I could be happy with my head in the sand, listening to crickets…

I guess I never thought high school kids read blogs to begin with – so I don’t see that as a change! I was just reading the post on Design Sponge about the change in the blogging landscape from 2013 and I found it interesting. As a reader, I don’t really see a difference over the past 4 years. I just started blogging regularly in January, so no input from that side. I spend the most time in my bloglovin feed these days, but I do enjoy Twitter/Instagram as well! If I had to choose one, I’d choose reading blogs I think!

I think you just neatly summed up why I am struggling so much to get back into blogging after a bit of hiatus. It amazes me how much it has changed in two years. I have fun with Instagram, but quite honestly, its difficult to find the same kind of community when you don’t have a base to start from.

Hm. I don’t know! I have definitely whittled down the blogs I read regularly to just a few – and as often as not I click on the posts through Facebook rather than in my reader. What I write is definitely not the oh-this-and-that I wrote in 2008 and 2009. But sometimes it is. And sometimes I enjoy reading that day to day stuff from bloggers who I know well.

I don’t do Instagram, so I miss out on some of that day to day and it makes me a little sad. I spend a lot – way toooo much – time on Facebook and click on a lot of links there, and occasionally still on Twitter.